P3.24. THE PROGRESSION OF ALS IN THE SKELETAL MUSCLES AFTER SWIM TRAINING IN FEMALE AND MALE MICE
Anbarieh Saadat1, Izabella Krawczyk1, Bartosz Cedro2, Alicja Piekarska2, Damian Flis2, Wiesław Ziółkowski3, Elżbieta Pyza1
1 Department of Cell Biology and Imaging, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland
2 Department of Pharmaceutical Pathophysiology, Medical University of Gdańsk, Poland
3 Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Medical University of Gdańsk, Poland
INTRODUCTION: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects the upper and lower motor neurons in the brain. It has been shown that the prevalence of ALS is greater in men, and they have shorter survival compared to women. ALS is incurable and treatments are focused on managing and reducing the symptoms of the disease to improve quality of life. The most effective physical activities are gentle exercises such as swimming to help strengthen the unaffected muscles. Even though the protective effects of certain physical activity in animal models of ALS have been reported, these positive effects of training were only effective when training started before the appearance of the first symptoms of the disease in mice.
AIM(S): The aim of our study was to determine the protective effect of swim training applied after the onset of disease on skeletal muscle atrophy and the progression of ALS in female and male mice, and whether it will limit destructive changes in the skeletal muscles and prolong the life span.
METHOD(S): Mice (20 females, 20 males) were divided into four groups: before the onset of ALS, early stage of ALS, terminal untrained ALS, and terminal swimming-trained ALS (five times per week). Muscles were prepared for Transmission Electron Microscopy. Samples from the Tibialis Anterior (TA) and Quadriceps (Qua) muscles were dissected at 4 °C at the end of the study and weighed to determine muscle atrophy.
RESULTS: The morphological changes such as sarcomere misaligned, enlarged mitochondria with vacuolization were observed in electrographs of TA and Qua muscles in both males and females. The obtained results showed that swim training prolonged the lifespan by approximately 12% and 6% in female and male ALS mice, respectively. In females, it was associated with maintaining 23% of body weight and showed a significant increase in the area (μm2) occupied by mitochondria in TA of the early onset group.
CONCLUSIONS: Swim training has positive effects on female ALS mice.
FINANCIAL SUPPORT: This study was supported by grants from the National Science Centre, Poland: 2020/39/B/NZ7/03366 and 2021/43/D/NZ7/00862.